


Sixteen

by araliya



Series: The Wonder Years [2]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 15:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13861125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araliya/pseuds/araliya
Summary: Because I'm a sucker for prom fics.





	Sixteen

**Author's Note:**

> This fic uses One and Only by Adele and also contains mentions of underage drinking if you're not into that.

(5.43 pm)

 

Chris’ mother does up the cerulean blue bow tie carefully, shows him how to twist, flip and pull, tells him that it brings out the blue in his eyes. He hugs her tight when her eyes start to shine, and she whispers in his ear that she’s proud of him.

 

She smooths Chris’ lapel and rights his collar, and he lets her. His shirt is cream this time, not the stark white he’d worn last year, and he breathes a quiet sigh of satisfaction.

 

(The red punch had shown up so vividly when he’d had it ‘accidentally’ poured on him, that it looked like he’d been stabbed. Chris doesn’t think he’ll wear white ever again.)

 

The doorbell rings as soon as his mom is done fussing over him, and Chris feels like a teenage girl but he runs to the window anyway; looks down to the porch and smiles when he sees the familiar head of unruly curls.

 

He takes his time going down the stairs ( _and he_ wills _his heart to stop beating so fast_ ), and turns the doorknob with a shaky wrist.

 

Darren stands there, million watt smile almost blinding in the sunlight, bedecked in a bright pink suit and black shirt. Perched on his head are hot pink sunglasses, and in his hands is a little box from the florist.

 

Chris is kissed softly (Darren up on tiptoes, curling a hand into the back of his hair) and then steps back in time for Darren to be bowled over by an ecstatic Hannah.

 

He catches Darren’s eyes over her shoulder, sees how warm and happy they are, and blushes to his roots.

 

They end up in the living room for the pictures. Darren had hugged Chris’ mom, shaken his Dad’s hand, and petted the dog, and now they stand, hands light on each other’s backs.

 

Chris blinks away the flash of the camera, and doesn’t realise that the photo they’ve just taken will end up propped and framed, ten years later.

 

(7:02 pm)

 

The low thrum of three hundred high schoolers packed into an enormous hall fills Chris’ ears as they walk in, and he grabs blindly for Darren’s hand. Darren squeezes tight and doesn’t let go, not even to hug his friends hello.

 

Chris waves to Nicole across the hall, points at her date and fans himself, and then grins when she does the same. Darren might look like a hot pink catastrophe next to Chris, but he’s a  _hot_  hot pink catastrophe- curls tamed and shining, skin tan against the collar of his black shirt.

 

They’re seated at a table for ten with the rest of Darren’s friends- bright, chattery theatre kids with infectious laughs and questionable fashion choices. Darren drops a kiss to Chris’ cheek before he heads off to the stage, where he’s playing in the band for a little tonight.

 

Chris feels a flash of panic at his retreating back, but Darren’s friends are kind and friendly and he ends up smiling so much that the muscles in his face ache. 

 

(9:36 pm)

 

His cheek brushes Darren’s hair as they dance, some acoustic rendition of Adele echoing through the hall.

 

At  _to hold in your arms_ , Darren pulls back to grin at him, tugging him closer and resting their foreheads together. Chris had promised him  _one dance and one dance only, D_ , but that one dance has slowly turned into five, and Darren’s arms are becoming just a little bit addictive.

 

There’s something strangely anchoring about it, about having someone hold you like they’re keeping you together. Chris is tethered and he’s not even fighting it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something niggles at him, that one logical part of him that was suppressed as soon as Darren kissed him for the first time. It says,  _you shouldn’t be in this deep, shouldn’t be this far gone- he could_ break _you_.

 

For once, Chris doesn’t care. He’s spent so long building walls, and it suddenly feels like such a  _relief_  to let someone tear them down. It’s like opening a window to a stifled room or cutting away the vines from a tree.

 

Simply  _better_.

 

(01:23)

 

Darren drops him home as the moon rises high in the sky.

 

They’d gone to a party afterwards, someone had offered up their backyard for one, and it had been a mess of punch dyed a startling Red No. 3 (which Chris had stayed the hell away from) and sweaty teenage bodies. He and Darren had danced for a bit, unabashed and loose with everyone practically liver-curdlingly drunk around them, and Chris’ cheeks are still pink with some of the wolf whistles they’d earned.

 

(Darren might’ve mixed them something sweet and candy-tasting, and Chris might have had several cups of it, and he now he knows exactly what alcohol does to his body because he’s never felt so unwound and uncaring in his life.)

 

The deep red flush might also be influenced by the memories of Darren’s hands splayed firmly on the small of his back as Chris threw his head back, music pounding in his ears and down through his body.

 

Those same hands are now cupping his waist, steadying him as they kiss under the lamplight of the porch.

 

“Thank you,” Darren says, once he pulls away. There’s glitter on his cheeks and Chris wonders how it got there.

 

“For what?”

 

“For tonight. For all of this.” At  _this_ , Darren gestures a little wildly, and Chris raises an eyebrow. “For making me so happy,” Darren specifies.

 

“Can you not be weird and sappy for at least  _one minute?_ ” Chris asks, but inside, he’s all but damn  _fluttering_.

 

“Oh, you love me.”’

 

“I do,” he replies, and he does. More than Chris thinks he’ll ever love anyone else in his life.

 

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter that he’s only sixteen.


End file.
